Draw vs. Inkscape?

Discuss the drawing application
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eclipsenow
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Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by eclipsenow »

Hi all,
I'm just wondering if anyone can point me to a comparison between Draw and Inkscape, and what different market sectors they appeal to?
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Draw V inkscape?

Post by Hagar Delest »

I've only used Inskscape once but I would say that Draw is for basic work when you need to embed a graphic in another document (mostly text document) and be able to edit it later if needed (add/move shapes, text boxes, ...).
Inkscape is more to design complex graphics to be embedded as they are afterward.
Haven't you found any review of Inkscape on the web?

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acknak
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Re: Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by acknak »

I can only echo what Hagar already said ...

Inkscape is far more powerful and has an excellent user interface. It's great for producing web graphics as images and as SVG (the standard vector graphics format). PDF, too (I think).

Draw is quite capable for simple tasks; its only real advantage is that it's part of OOo and it does a better job of producing graphics for the other OOo applications.

My impression is that many pro/serious graphics people happily use Inkscape and dismiss Draw. Since I'm already using OOo exclusively for creating documents, Draw is more comfortable/convenient for me. If Inkscape could produce graphics that worked nicely in the OOo documents, I'd probably switch too.
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eclipsenow
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Re: Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by eclipsenow »

What if I wanted to create fairly simple sketches of a 2D boxed layout map, with lots of labels? I'm writing a book and, if you will, need a quickly editable map of 'Hogwarts' so to speak. (Well, it's a fortified shopping mall in a post-Mad Max meets Harry Potter world, but you get my drift). Would OO be the app to use for something like that?
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by Hagar Delest »

I don't really see it but perhaps the best is to make the graphic with Inkscape and add the labels in Draw (insert the svg and then add the labels).
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acknak
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Re: Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by acknak »

Draw should be adequate for that--as far as I can see. You can easily make rectangles and add labels to them. Draw also has layers, which can be especially handy with maps.

One feature that Draw has that can be nice for such projects is that it provides simple styles--so you can create a style that holds all the formatting properties for the shapes. Then, if you need to tweak the appearance, it's easy to keep everything consistent. I don't know if Inkscape provides anything like that.
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eclipsenow
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Re: Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by eclipsenow »

Cool, great answers. Can Draw do circles and maybe a few wavy lines as well? Just for basic mapping: think war-gaming or D&D. Also, best training website for Draw? I'll put it up on my blog as a resource.
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Draw vs. Inkscape?

Post by Hagar Delest »

:shock:
Of course Draw can do basic shapes like circles (ellipses)! Have you tried it a minimum???
For a wavy line, you'll have to create it yourself. Think of a elementary item (a portion of a sinusoid) drawn by hand with the curve feature to adjust tangents and then copy and paste it and group them once aligned.
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